as though the highest point of _protective_ benefit
would have been reached long before the resemblance of the spider to
the ant had become so close as it really is. On the other hand, it is
difficult to believe that ants are deceived, even by those spiders
which mimic them most closely, when we remember that their perceptions
are so keen that they discriminate not only between ants of their own
and different species, but even between ants of their own species
living in two different communities.

The mimicry of ichneumon flies by spiders was noted some years ago by
Mr. Herbert Smith. This case comes under Class 3, in which one species
mimics another which preys upon it. Great destruction is caused by
ichneumons which lay their eggs on the bodies of the live spiders,
and the disguise probably protects the spider by leading the fly to
mistake it for one of its own species.

We have no proof that spiders ever mimic ants as a method of escaping
from them, but it is possible that this sometimes happens. We know
that some ants prey upon them. The foraging ants of South America
destroy spiders as well as many kinds of insects, and Wallace mentions
a small, wood-boring ant which fills its nest with small spiders.

If the spiders that feed upon ants deceive them by their mimicry those
which are preyed upon by ants would gain an advantage by a similar
disguise. I once placed a little ant-like spider of the genus
Herpyllus in a bottle with three ants no larger than itself, which I
had caught with it in the sweep-net. In a very few minutes the ants
had killed and begun to devour the spider. It may be that the
resemblance was sufficiently close to deceive them in the open, but
failed when spider and ants were confined together in close quarters.

THE BATH OF THE BIRDS

BY RICHARD JEFFERIES.

[Illustration]

One morning Sir Bevis went down to the brook. Standing on the brink,
he said: "Brook, Brook! what are you singing? You promised to tell me
what you were saying."

The brook did not answer, but went on singing. Bevis listened a
minute, and then he picked a willow leaf and threw it into the bubbles
and watched it go whirling round and round in the eddies and back up
under the fall, where it dived down and presently came up again, and
the stream took it and carried it away past the flags. "Brook, Brook!"
said Bevis, stamping his foot; "tell me what you are singing."

And the brook, having now finished that part o